A sprawling industrial property in the Bronx's Parkchester neighborhood is officially up for grabs, and its location next to a future Metro-North station has real estate players buzzing about thousands of apartments that could eventually rise there. The 7.4-acre site at 1601 Bronxdale Avenue has already secured city approvals for a massive mixed-use buildout, even though for now it remains a working industrial property generating steady rental income.
A Decades-Old Industrial Parcel Goes Up For Sale
Himmel + Meringoff, which bought the site in 2019, is exploring a sale alongside Affinius Capital, according to the New York Post. The firm says it has developed, partnered in or managed roughly 5 million square feet of prime New York City property, per the same report. The owners bought the Bronxdale Avenue site for $89 million seven years ago and now reportedly hope to fetch $120 million for it, according to sources cited by the Post.
BKREA, the brokerage tapped to market the property, confirmed it was exclusively retained on Aug. 6, 2026 to arrange the sale, according to a listing on Business Insider markets wire. BKREA is headed by CEO Bob Knakal, who said the Bronxdale Avenue property represents an opportunity combining an operating industrial asset, significant land area, a future transit connection and potential for thousands of homes, per the Post's reporting.
Conflicting Numbers On The Existing Building
Just how big the current building is depends on who you ask. BKREA's marketing materials describe a 354,309-square-foot, two-story industrial building with second-floor office space and an on-site parking deck, while the Post's reporting rounds that figure to roughly 354,000 square feet. Himmel + Meringoff's own portfolio page, however, describes the property as a mixed-use 300,000-square-foot warehouse building that also includes office and retail uses along Bronxdale Avenue and a rooftop parking deck with more than 200 spaces, according to the firm's hmprop.com listing. The site is currently leased to industrial and commercial tenants that provide in-place cash flow, and a separate listing on propertyshark.com describes the asset as offering stable in-place cash flow, meaningful value-add upside and extraordinary long-term optionality, with pricing guidance available upon request.
What Could Eventually Rise On The Site
Himmel + Meringoff has already obtained all necessary city approvals for a far larger project, per the Post's reporting. That approved development includes six buildings, a plaza, retail space, community space and a direct pedestrian connection to the planned Metro-North station, with the Post reporting the buildout at 2.41 million square feet and the planned complex containing up to 2,300 apartments at an estimated cost of around $1 billion. BKREA's own marketing, however, describes a proposed development program of approximately 2.42 million square feet across six buildings, with about 2,200 residential units, roughly 141,000 square feet of retail, office and community-facility space, and 640 parking spaces. At a 2024 City Council subcommittee hearing, the development team pegged the total number of units at somewhere around 2,300 and said via a transcript posted on citymeetings.nyc that they would really hope to make this a residential, badly badly needed residential expansion. The same hearing record put the estimated cost of a planned pedestrian overpass connecting the site to the future station at about $15 million.
Betting On A Station That Doesn't Exist Yet
The whole pitch hinges on the Parkchester/Van Nest Metro-North station, which BKREA's marketing says is adjacent to the site and was scheduled to open in 2027. That timeline doesn't match the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's own estimate — the agency says its broader Penn Station Access project, which includes four new ADA-accessible Metro-North stations in the Bronx including Parkchester/Van Nest, is expected to be completed by 2030. The MTA says the new service will cut travel times from the Bronx to Manhattan by as much as 50 minutes and will connect Bronx residents with Manhattan, Westchester County and Connecticut via Metro-North's New Haven Line, addressing what's often described as a transit desert in the East Bronx, according to reporting from Smart Cities Dive.
The changes in use and size approved for 1601 Bronxdale Avenue were part of broader state and city plans to add Metro-North stations in the Bronx. The New York City Council approved a related Bronx rezoning in August 2024 that's expected to create nearly 7,000 new housing units near the four planned stations, per Smart Cities Dive's report. That plan also allows residential development in areas currently zoned for commercial and manufacturing uses, and calls for roughly $500 million in capital investments in pedestrian infrastructure, parks, playgrounds and public schools, along with 1,700 permanently income-restricted homes. The New York City Council's own press release on the rezoning confirms it is expected to add approximately 7,000 residential housing units alongside infrastructure and community investments. The Bronxdale Avenue site itself carries flexible M1-1A/R7-3 zoning permitting a broad range of industrial, commercial and office uses, according to the BKREA marketing materials.
Whether any of the approved 2,200- or 2,300-unit vision breaks ground anytime soon remains to be seen — the sale itself is only just getting underway, with the property's asking price and eventual buyer still unconfirmed.
